It’s been previously reported that e-commerce in the second quarter grew at the fastest quarterly rate in two years. But now that the Q2 financial reporting season for public companies has come to a close, it’s clear that many of the largest publicly traded online retailers drove the quarter’s stellar results—especially so for online retail behemoth Amazon.com Inc.

The 33 online retailers tracked in Internet Retailer’s first-ever quarterly e-commerce report, “E-Retail Quarterly Financial Spotlight,” grew web sales 24.2% to $39.21 billion during the second quarter of 2016 that ended June 30, compared with the same period of 2015. The merchants tracked in this report include 33 publicly traded retailers that break out e-commerce sales on a quarterly basis.

Publicly traded retailers grew their e-commerce business faster in the quarter than the overall growth rate of online retail sales in the United States. In the second quarter, e-commerce sales grew 15.8% year over year to $91.24 billion, the Commerce Department reported in August. That was the largest year-over-year growth rate since the third quarter of 2014, when e-commerce sales grew 16.2% compared with the same period the previous year.

Web leader Amazon, No. 1 in the Internet Retailer 2016 Top 1000, accounted for more than 80% of that increase with another blockbuster quarter in which sales of its own products and commissions and fees it receives from products sold by marketplace sellers increased 28.8% to $27.52 billion from $21.36 billion in Q2 2015. This figure does not include revenue from its cloud storage service, Amazon Web Services, which totaled $2.89 billion in Q2, the company reported in July.

The growth in sales by marketplace sellers is contributing to Amazon’s profitability, as the retailer does not have to lay out capital to buy and store merchandise, and it takes a commission on every sale. Amazon does not disclose the value of sales on its e-commerce sites in its quarterly earnings results. But one close follower of online marketplaces, Scot Wingo, executive chairman of e-commerce marketing firm ChannelAdvisor Corp., estimates the total value of goods sold on Amazon’s sites was $61.7 billion in Q2 2016, up 27.7% from the same period a year ago. That growth is one reason for Amazon’s skyrocketing net income. The online retailer increased profits by 832% year over year to $857.0 million in the quarter—a record-high for the company.

advertisement

But Amazon isn’t the only retailer experiencing large gains in e-commerce. In “E-Retail Quarterly Financial Spotlight,” Internet Retailer analyzes the latest financial results of some of the largest e-commerce merchants, including revenue, net income, mobile commerce and gross merchandise value. The analysis breaks down retailers by merchant type, such as retail chain and web-only retailers. The report also reviews the financials of nine technology and service providers that primarily serve the e-commerce industry. Additionally, an exclusive Internet Retailer Online Retail Stock Index shows how investors view the health of the e-commerce industry, compared with the broader stock market.